My spiritual advancement will fail if my other Pillars are not built. Continuation Training Step 52

My spiritual advancement will fail if my other Pillars are not built. CT Step 52 (MP3)

My spiritual advancement will fail if my other Pillars are not built. CT Step 52

You can see clearly in your own experience how people will give away everything for one Pillar. They will cast away everything for relationships. They will neglect everything for their work. They will even neglect everything for their spiritual advancement, only wanting to meditate all day long and be in a high state. You will see how people give away everything for their health and their health concerns and how this Pillar dominates them for their whole life.

This is not the way for a student of Knowledge. There is no stability here. There is no foundation here. Yes, if someone has a true calling to be masterful at one activity, this will dominate their life and experience. But these cases are exceptional and often these people suffer greatly because of it, having never developed their other Pillars sufficiently.

Here you must learn a balanced approach. This serves as an antidote to eccentricity, to compulsive behavior, and to erratic thinking. It provides a balance, which is often the very element that is lacking in people’s lives. Here you are not a superstar in any area, but you are capable in them all. This frees you to do greater work, to learn greater things and to make a greater contribution.

If your Pillars are always crumbling beneath you, they will dominate your life. Here you may not have perfect health, perfect relationships, a perfect job or a perfect spiritual practice. Instead, you work in all these areas and, as a result, they will all grow and become strong. Then the Creator can give you a gift for the world and you will not crumble under its weight. Then you can bring something into the world without failing yourself.

How obvious this is when you think about it. And today we want you to think about it. Think about the examples of those who neglect one of their Pillars or all of their Pillars for the one preferred area of their life. Even in the realm of spiritual practice, people will give over everything for one Pillar. Recognize how inappropriate this is. Even in monasteries, people have to live Four Pillars. They have to work to maintain the facility. They have to get along with other people. They have to deal with mundane activities. They have to deal with practical necessities. The problem arises when people have self-appointed destinies. They do not want to join the convent or the monastery, but they want to live a very spiritually focused life and have everything be very spiritual. Yet they cannot give to the world because they do not have the power or the stability to do it. And they are unwilling to yield to the world because they are out of relationship with it.

Today it is important to think about these things. Beyond your practice in stillness and your hourly remembrances, think about this. Keep your spiritual development in perspective. Realize how it is dependent upon the other Pillars in your life. And realize how they are dependent upon your spiritual development. Think deeply about this and you will see things that can help you and that can help others.

Practice 52:   One 30-minute stillness practice.

                          Contemplation practice.

                          Hourly practice.

Picture:  Santa Maria delle Grazie ("Holy Mary of Grace") church and Dominican convent in Milan, Italy. The mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is in the refectory of the convent. The day I visited, there were no tickets for the mural, so we went to this part where there was an exhibition and this replica of the mural with a history.

Replica of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

Plan B - If the MP3 doesn’t work, here’s the link to the folder: New Message - Student Spoken Steps CT Recordings - Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training - Working file

Journal entry link CT Step 51x1

NNC

Note: If you’ve some interest, but this is the first time you’ve seen Steps, you should go to the beginning blog post. From here you will learn about Steps to Knowledge and can begin it on the day that makes sense; then progress as needed. Begin at the beginning.

If you do know about Steps, but have not done Steps twice completely, read the related materials, and have a sense of the direction of this study, you won’t get the experience. The Introduction begins:

“This is the Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training. It is designed to build upon the Steps that were learned in Steps to Knowledge to enable you to experience the grace, the power and the direction of Knowledge in your life and to become an expression of Knowledge in everything that you do. If you have completed the book, Steps to Knowledge, twice through and have followed the instructions as they were given without altering the curriculum in any way, then you are now ready to begin this more advanced study”.

If you are an independent student, that is certainly an option. Posts here provide a trail that may let you have a virtual companion when and if you want one. One may have to study alone, as I did in the beginning. There are other Steps students blogging their experience and you might find a person more like you as a companion, or use a number of such Steps journeys. There are options as well through the Free School of the New Message.